The touchscreen is a 17" LCD which connects using VGA. The touchscreen also has a serial port, which is connected to a serial-to-usb adapter.

−

The touchscreen is located at the other end of the bar and is connected to the case through a USB cable for the input devices and a VGA cable for the output (screen).

+

−

*Touchscreen

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===Case===

−

**17" LCD (VGA)

+

It is fancy.

−

**the touchscreen has a serial port, which is connected to a serial-to-usb adapter plugged in a usb hub

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−

*Mouse and keyboard

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−

**Since we have a USB hub we connected extra USB input device so we can use the computer as an all-purpose device

+

−

**We might drop these extra input devices if we find a decent on screen keyboard

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−

*The touchscreen is powered by a PSU, a button on the back of the screen's case switches this PSU on

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===Misc===

===Misc===

* We have a serial barcode scanner, but we don't use it at the moment

* We have a serial barcode scanner, but we don't use it at the moment

−

** Is this still available?

+

** Is this still available? Yes!!!

==Software==

==Software==

*Berz tried using debian (concerned with the system's reliability) but couldn't get the touchscreen (which isn't supported by the kernel) configured

*Berz tried using debian (concerned with the system's reliability) but couldn't get the touchscreen (which isn't supported by the kernel) configured

−

*The server runs Ubuntu 10.10, which comes with Utouch, under which Ward got the touchscreen working quickly

+

*The barputer runs Xubuntu, which comes with Utouch, under we got the touchscreen working quickly

===Touch===

===Touch===

Line 54:

Line 41:

=== Music ===

=== Music ===

−

We use MPD (Music Player Daemon) as a server. This allows us to use various clients at the same time, including over the network and on portable devices. For information on playing music, see [[How to play music]].

+

The technical aspect of the setup is documented here, if you just want to play some music, check out [[How to play music]]

+

+

We use MPD (Music Player Daemon) as a music server. This allows us to use various clients at the same time, including over the network and on portable devices.

+

+

MPD can play audio streams. The list of streams is populated by scanning /home/barputer/Music/streams

+

Aditionally MPD scans for music in /home/barputer/Music/shares. However no music is kept on barputer, and we intend to keep it this way. Instead, this directory is dynamically populated by mounting available music directories over the network.

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==== RAF ====

+

[[ Image:RAF.png | right | 100px ]]

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Raf is the name of the script that mounts the shared music dirs, and is an abbreviation of Remote Audio Folders. It scans the network for available samba shares, keeps only those whose name contains the string 'music' to prevent mounting the wrong shares, mounts and updates the MPD library if necessary. It also scans if all the mounted shares are still accessible and unmounts them if they are not. Raf is invoked automatically by cron, keeping the MPD library up to date.

+

+

If you're impatient, you can force a sync by executing the following command on barputer:

+

# RAF sync

To add music to the MPD library we originally used djmount, a program which automatically mounts UPNP shares. This setup was copied from [http://0x20.be Whitespace] and is documented [http://0x20.be/Audio_System here].

To add music to the MPD library we originally used djmount, a program which automatically mounts UPNP shares. This setup was copied from [http://0x20.be Whitespace] and is documented [http://0x20.be/Audio_System here].

−

Although this setup kind of worked, it didn't for some people. One of these people was berz_, who wrote a script which automounts sambashares which we currently use. We might complement this with djmount, allowing everyone to pick the one they prefer. This isn't implemented at the moment because no one bothered to use UPNP yet.

+

−

For information on adding your own music to the database, please see [[How to play music]].

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==== Forwarding sound through pulseaudio ====

+

Pulseaudio has replaced ALSA and OSS quite some time ago as the default sound server on linux. Since pulseaudio has networking built in by default, you can forward sound to barputer instead of your laptop speakers if you are running pulseaudio too (ie: run linux).

+

+

===== The CLI way =====

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PULSE_SERVER=192.168.42.103 rhythmbox

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This should start rhythmbox while sending the resulting audio to barputer. Warning: barputer's ip might change.

+

+

===== The GUI way (GNOME) =====

+

You will need to have paprefs, pavucontrol and avahi installed. Avahi needs to be running to discover network devices. Launch paprefs and tell pulseaudio to make remote audio servers available locally. Reboot to or restart Pulseaudio. Launch pavucontrol. Under the 'playback' tab you will see all programs playing audio listed. If Avahi detects barputer's pulseaudio server you should be able to select it to play one of these streams

=== Point of sales & Stock management ===

=== Point of sales & Stock management ===

Using the vwcr application made by [[Koert]]. It's not completely finished yet, but it can be used (and is being used).

Using the vwcr application made by [[Koert]]. It's not completely finished yet, but it can be used (and is being used).

+

+

===Backups===

+

====Images====

+

Every once in a while we make a full snapshot. These are full images that can be restored to the drive. The last image was made on '''17/05/'12'''. The images are made using FSarchiver. We can't use Norton Ghost or Clonezilla since they don't have support for EXT4, which we use for barputer's root filesystem. Backup procedure:

**The first time we used --compress=5, which took a long time. So we should probably use level 4 or even 3.

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====Incremental====

+

A backup of all the files on the root drive is taken every hour. These backups are rotated. Every fifth hourly backup is kept for 25 hours and is called a 'recent' backup. Every fifth recent backup is kept for 125 hours and called a 'medium' backup. Every fifth medium backup is called an 'old' backup and is kept indefinably. One hour in this context refers to an hour the computer is turned on. The snapshots are made and rotated automatically.

+

+

This scheme uses rsync for snapshotting, rsnapshot for rotating, and space usage is kept down using hardlinks (every version of a file is only saved once).

Music

The technical aspect of the setup is documented here, if you just want to play some music, check out How to play music

We use MPD (Music Player Daemon) as a music server. This allows us to use various clients at the same time, including over the network and on portable devices.

MPD can play audio streams. The list of streams is populated by scanning /home/barputer/Music/streams
Aditionally MPD scans for music in /home/barputer/Music/shares. However no music is kept on barputer, and we intend to keep it this way. Instead, this directory is dynamically populated by mounting available music directories over the network.

RAF

Raf is the name of the script that mounts the shared music dirs, and is an abbreviation of Remote Audio Folders. It scans the network for available samba shares, keeps only those whose name contains the string 'music' to prevent mounting the wrong shares, mounts and updates the MPD library if necessary. It also scans if all the mounted shares are still accessible and unmounts them if they are not. Raf is invoked automatically by cron, keeping the MPD library up to date.

If you're impatient, you can force a sync by executing the following command on barputer:

# RAF sync

To add music to the MPD library we originally used djmount, a program which automatically mounts UPNP shares. This setup was copied from Whitespace and is documented here.

Forwarding sound through pulseaudio

Pulseaudio has replaced ALSA and OSS quite some time ago as the default sound server on linux. Since pulseaudio has networking built in by default, you can forward sound to barputer instead of your laptop speakers if you are running pulseaudio too (ie: run linux).

The CLI way

PULSE_SERVER=192.168.42.103 rhythmbox

This should start rhythmbox while sending the resulting audio to barputer. Warning: barputer's ip might change.

The GUI way (GNOME)

You will need to have paprefs, pavucontrol and avahi installed. Avahi needs to be running to discover network devices. Launch paprefs and tell pulseaudio to make remote audio servers available locally. Reboot to or restart Pulseaudio. Launch pavucontrol. Under the 'playback' tab you will see all programs playing audio listed. If Avahi detects barputer's pulseaudio server you should be able to select it to play one of these streams

Point of sales & Stock management

Using the vwcr application made by Koert. It's not completely finished yet, but it can be used (and is being used).

Backups

Images

Every once in a while we make a full snapshot. These are full images that can be restored to the drive. The last image was made on 17/05/'12. The images are made using FSarchiver. We can't use Norton Ghost or Clonezilla since they don't have support for EXT4, which we use for barputer's root filesystem. Backup procedure:

The first time we used --compress=5, which took a long time. So we should probably use level 4 or even 3.

Incremental

A backup of all the files on the root drive is taken every hour. These backups are rotated. Every fifth hourly backup is kept for 25 hours and is called a 'recent' backup. Every fifth recent backup is kept for 125 hours and called a 'medium' backup. Every fifth medium backup is called an 'old' backup and is kept indefinably. One hour in this context refers to an hour the computer is turned on. The snapshots are made and rotated automatically.

This scheme uses rsync for snapshotting, rsnapshot for rotating, and space usage is kept down using hardlinks (every version of a file is only saved once).